Posted on 11/06/2001 12:19:54 PM PST by CommiesOut
| Detroit Free Press Mike Wendland Column Detroit Free Press - Michigan - KRTBN; Nov 6, 2001 BY MIKE WENDLAND
SHORTWAVE RADIOS GAINING POPULARITY IN U.S. AGAIN: Shortwave listening is back. Since Sept. 11, Grundig, the German radio company that is the market leader in shortwave radio sales, says its U.S. business has increased by 500 percent. "It started right after the terror attacks," says John Smith, director of operations for Grundig's U.S. operations. "The first week, our orders went up 100 percent, then 200 percent. Lately, it's averaging 500 percent. It shows no signs of slowing down." ionosphere and travel thousands of miles over mountains and across oceans, providing live news from the other side of the world. Back in radio's heyday, between 1920 and 1950, shortwave listening was extremely popular. Most home receivers -- huge consoles typically shaped like an upside down U -- routinely included the shortwave bands. But as TV replaced radio as America's leading information source in the 50s and Top 40 radio -- and later FM stereo music -- led to the hi-fi fad of the 60s, the shortwave part of the nation's broadcasting habit fell by the wayside. Not so in the rest of the world, where shortwave listening remains very popular. The Voice of America, a government-sponsored shortwave service, as well as shortwave reports from the British Broadcasting Corp., Radio Israel, the Voice of Russia, Radio Netherlands and many others, broadcast 24 hours a day, in scores of languages. Millions listen throughout Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, switching frequencies and bands throughout the day because, as the sun travels the sky, it heats and cools the atmosphere and thus affects the distance and direction radio signals travel. Technology has made shortwave radios very easy to operate. Automatic Gain Control, which adjusts for signal strength fluctuations, does away with much of the fading and warbling that used to characterize shortwave signals. Grundig sells sets that range from $30 to $500. Most work with pull-up antennas. I've been testing out the company's most popular radio, the eTravelerVII, a $129 unit that fits in a shirt pocket and runs on two AA batteries or an AC adapter. Smith says business executives who travel overseas used to be the most common buyers. "Now, we're getting orders so fast that we aren't sure what groups these new buyers come from." The eTraveler unit has standard AM and FM radio bands plus full shortwave coverage of the frequencies between 2 and 30 mHz. The standard AM radio band ends at about 1.7 mHz. FM starts about 88 mHz. Grundig offers a guide to shortwave listening on its Web site (www.grundigradio.net), but generally the best signals are heard after sunset. My eTraveler unit seems to pick up a lot of interference from my computer but, by pulling up the antenna and experimenting with where I put it, I have been able to listen to shortwave broadcasts from anywhere I've tried. The news broadcasts are a lot like what you hear on National Public Radio and offer in-depth reports with lots of interviews and perspectives. Contact Mike Wendland at mwendland@freepress.com or 313-222-8861. |
Of course, now I know I'm not on some FBI list because of those activities......but Freepin' and sending e-mail to the 'Toons, well I'm not sure about that one! LOL!
DX '73
As I understand it, the reason is that when the signal fades in & out, it fades slightly more at one frequency than another - so the lower sideband ends up coming in slightly louder or softer than the higher sideband. So the combined audio signal gets that garbled quality to it.
I seem to remember reading many years ago about the "new" crop of shortwave radios, that were supposed to fix that, among other things. Did that ever happen?
I've seen at least two screen names that were ham calls, but I can't remember either offhand.
"Well, Pat, my turn-ons are conservative politics, posting on Free Republic, and ham radio." :-)
73,
Tony W8HRO
Well, they "sorta" fixed it. The Sony 2010 and portables and tabletop sets above the Sony's price range include a synchronous detector, which in essence replaces a signal's carrier and detects one or the other sideband, dramatically reducing fading and improving signal intelligibility.
Unfortunately, you still need a moderately strong signal to begin with for most synch detectors to work well, and the reproduced audio isn't quite as nice. Synch detection is one of the reasons the Sony 2010 is so popular - in that receiver it works well, and it is one of the least expensive radios available that have the feature.
Maybe more than you wanted to know, but there's an answer.
Tony
Timing is everything!
That's a cool radio. They sell pretty well over at the 'Bay, too!
Tony
}:-)4
There's NEVER more than I want to know. :-) Thanks, that was very interesting. (Must look into the Sony 2010 now... my early 70's Sony ICF-6500W is finally entering its doddering old age.)
de kc4yoz.
de kc4yoz.
The American people found out that they can get more truthful information from the foreign stations than from our dominance group controlled media. Just imagine that I can find out more on a foreign radio, what is our State Department saying, than in our media.
Sometimes they're so far rightwing that they fall over the edge -- like the stuff from Peter J. Peters, but they have some good stuff as well.
SW was really fun in the run-up to Y2K -- there was a man named Jeff Bennett who was peddling MREs and other survival stuff and as the date grew nearer, his stories grew wackier and wackier...
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